Honey, why'd you off the kids?
So, I saw Noah, the movie. I find it hard to sit through movies anymore. The violence is usually so over the top, I have to pace a little until it's over. It was a very loud movie, too, most of them are, but I didn't expect so much ear-splitting racket in those days, just the steady drum of the rainfall.
Hollywood can always come up with another angle. And Noah is no exception. This Noah was promoted to be Noah like you never knew him before. Long story short, Noah wants to off the kids. Mrs. Noah doesn't like the idea, needless to say. Considering these were the last three teenagers in the world, I thought they were pretty well behaved. All this time, you have thought this was the story of bringing humanity back from the brink but no. That's not it all.
Why does he hate his kids so? Does he hate them because they fight? Well, they're kids. How would you like to be the last teenagers on earth and cooped up with your parents on an ark? At least they didn't do drugs. And then there's the rain, the relentless rain.
Noah comes to the conclusion that his kids just prove to him that mankind is not worth saving. He then gets it in his head that the creator wants his to get rid of the whole bunch. This kind of all or nothing thinking seems to be something of an occupational hazard with prophets and such.
What really turns you off to Noah is that Shem's girlfriend gets pregnant, and that really throws a monkey wrench into the end of humanity scenario Noah's got cooking in his head. He almost kills both newborn twins, both girls, because he has got to stop the human race from continuing.
Luckily, he does not. Noah does have some problems with Ham but not the one we expect. Ham does not have a girlfriend. I have often wondered how the human race could possibly have been propagated by Noah, his three sons and his wife. But in this version we do have Shem's girlfriend. You can see the movie and found out how this came about. However, Ham did not have a girlfriend, nor did he have an Android. He was pretty bored, and lonely and wound up siding with Dad's archenemy. Couldn't get the man's name straight to save my life. It sounded like Supercain. SuperFly, Supercain. No, I knew that wasn't it.
Tubal Qayim in Biblical Hebrew became TubalCain in King James English, which morphed into SuperCain in modern-day, Hollywood American, at least in my mind. Tubal Cain was the brutal and evil descendant of Cain as well as the arms dealer and user of his day. All round bad guy. Genesis 4:22 says that Tubal-cain was the "forger of all instruments of bronze and iron" (ESV) or an "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron" (KJV).
The thing with Tubal is that he wanted to settle things the old fashioned way. He wanted to club the opposition to death, and then leave with the girls.
Noah's not like that. Being a Hollywood movie, we do get a little PC-ness in Biblical form. Noah is a vegetarian as are his kids. The earth just prior to the flood is a barren wasteland. One drop of water falls from the sky in one scene and a single flower bursts into full form. His little son, Shem, wants to pick the flower, as it is the first one he has ever seen but Dad tells him to leave it where it is and preserve the earth. Save the Planet? Why? It's about to be destroyed by water. Noah's already had those intuitive dreams so he knows what's about to come down, water and a lot of it.
But that part you know already.
What is interesting is that these Israelites or Jews early on is that with the exception of Mom, played by Jennifer Connolly, all are redheads. Aronovsky is the director so I wonder why he doesn't want those Jews to look Jewish. Jennifer Connolly is dark haired and could actually be Jewish as far as her appearance goes. Emma Stone plays Shem's girlfriend, and she definitely doesn't look Jewish. And then there's Russell Crowe and he most certainly doesn't look like a member of the tribe.
So what is the message? On the subliminal level, it could be that they and we are one. Jews and Anglos really are members of the same tribe, blood brothers to the end? Is that it?